American History Using Mostly Biographies

[Chloe]

My ds wants to study American history next year (9th grade year). Instead of a textbook, he'd like to read several biographies on main historical figures. A couple of nonfiction books on events would be ok too, but he's not a fan of historical fiction. I'd love some ideas. Do we really need to use a text or spine of some sort to pull it all together?

 

ETA: He enjoys reading, but doesn't care much for history.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

If you don't use a text you do need something to pull the readings together.

You might look at I'm the Teacher, You're the Student by Allitt, which details a college semester of American Survey. The author uses a lot of bios. He is also one of the lecturers for the big US History set from The Teaching Company.

[Melissa B]

We are doing high school American History now too (just started this month.) Instead of a regular text we are using Howard Zinn's Voices of a People's History of the United States. It is completely compiled of primary documents. It also has a teacher's edition that pulls things together and includes discussion questions, essay assignments, etc. The book can be used alone as a spine or together with Zinn's American History book. We are using it along with the Teaching Company lectures - History of the United States. In addition they are reading one biography of their choice per month.

[Chloe]

If you don't use a text you do need something to pull the readings together.

You might look at I'm the Teacher, You're the Student by Allitt, which details a college semester of American Survey. The author uses a lot of bios. He is also one of the lecturers for the big US History set from The Teaching Company.

 

 

Thanks. I'll take a look at this.

[Chloe]

We are doing high school American History now too (just started this month.) Instead of a regular text we are using Howard Zinn's Voices of a People's History of the United States. It is completely compiled of primary documents. It also has a teacher's edition that pulls things together and includes discussion questions, essay assignments, etc. The book can be used alone as a spine or together with Zinn's American History book. We are using it along with the Teaching Company lectures - History of the United States. In addition they are reading one biography of their choice per month.

 

 

This might work. Thanks.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

 

Thanks. I'll take a look at this.

 

 

I was on my ipod, so I wanted to come back and add more info. The book I'm the Teacher, You're the Student is a book about his life during the entire semester. It is mostly focused on his experience as a long time college professor. In the back of the book, he includes his syllabus for the course. One thing that was interesting is his comments on why he chose various books and how well the students connected with each.

 

But the book isn't a history curriculum in and of itself. I didn't want you to buy it and then be disappointed that it wasn't what you thought it was.

 

It is also a really good book to give to current or future college students. He does a good job of capturing the absurdity of students who don't turn in work and are amazed at getting lower grades.

[Chloe]

I was on my ipod, so I wanted to come back and add more info. The book I'm the Teacher, You're the Student is a book about his life during the entire semester. It is mostly focused on his experience as a long time college professor. In the back of the book, he includes his syllabus for the course. One thing that was interesting is his comments on why he chose various books and how well the students connected with each.

 

But the book isn't a history curriculum in and of itself. I didn't want you to buy it and then be disappointed that it wasn't what you thought it was.

 

It is also a really good book to give to current or future college students. He does a good job of capturing the absurdity of students who don't turn in work and are amazed at getting lower grades.

 

 

Thanks for the clarification. It does sound interesting. I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy to get a better look.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

 

 

There's also a great book called A People's History of the American Revolution, by Ray Raphael (edited by Zinn)

 

I read things in it that I'd never heard of at all. It's amazing what school texts choose to omit.

 

 

There is no text that can include everything. Just to take the period we're studying, the late 1880s to 1913, there are very different immigrant experiences depending on where you were coming from, where you settled and when you came over. Not to mention personal or local factors (lack of children, early death of parents, alcoholism, local effect of warfare).

 

I've been prereading The American Pageant. It is frustrating how pessimistic the tone of the text is. To read it, you would think that the history of the US is predominantly one of bigotry, repression and greed. Yet this is a pretty mainstream text.

 

Zinn is another stream of historical view altogether. I would take Zinn's texts with a hefty grain of salt and read widely to see how his viewpoint influences his selection of what to include and how to include it.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

 

There is no text that can include everything. Just to take the period we're studying, the late 1880s to 1913, there are very different immigrant experiences depending on where you were coming from, where you settled and when you came over. Not to mention personal or local factors (lack of children, early death of parents, alcoholism, local effect of warfare).

 

I've been prereading The American Pageant. It is frustrating how pessimistic the tone of the text is. To read it, you would think that the history of the US is predominantly one of bigotry, repression and greed. Yet this is a pretty mainstream text.

 

Zinn is another stream of historical view altogether. I would take Zinn's texts with a hefty grain of salt and read widely to see how his viewpoint influences his selection of what to include and how to include it.

 

Just another example. There are cartoons of Abraham Lincoln that are often included in history books. Then are very unflattering and lampoon him as fool, tyrant, coward and hand of Satan. What isn't often included is the mention of the fact that the cartoonist was very much in favor of the seccession of the Confederate States. So the cartoons aren't just a matter of loyal opposition or observations of a neutral media. They very much have a point of view. (The National Portrait Gallery has a couple dozen on display. We were able to see them up close a few months ago. Taken as a collection they are clearly pro-Confederacy. But this isn't the viewpoint you get when one is presented as an illustration in a textbook. You can see several here.

 

To the point of the OP, I think you need to be aware of this when picking biographies. Any one biography can only serve as the representation of one person's experience in one place at one point in time. It may serve as illustration of the experience of others at other times and places only to a certain point.

 

I listened to Stephen Ambrose discuss some of this in a chapter about how he came to write a biography of Custer and Crazy Horse. (The chapter was part of To America, which was a wonderful work to go through. He covers so many different periods, as well as a lot of how his understanding of how to approach history changed over the decades.)

 

[i know this was a bit of a hijack. I'm not a Howard Zinn fan. I think he needs to come with a warning label, just as much as a historian who is writing a very providential history needs to come with a label. YMMV.]

[Kareni]

When my daughter was in 8th and 9th grades, we used American History the Easy Way (along with World History the Easy Way) to supplement a primarily literature approach to World History. There is now a newer version with a different title. The book was unexciting but did cover the breadth of American History; it's over 500 pages long.

 

Regards,

Kareni